About Me
Where It All Started
I was born in Rutherglen Maternity Hospital in 1994 to my Mum, Fiona and Dad, Gordon (yes, it made the post very confusing).
I come from a working class background - my dad is a welder and my grandpa was a miner - but politics wasn't a big part of my upbringing.
I went to my local primary and high school. My early teenage years were mostly taken up by playing football, my Xbox 360 and learning to play poker.
One day, while at PC World with my parents I bought a book called 'C++ for beginners'. Although it didn't seem so at the time, that would have a big impact on my life.
By reading that book and watching countless YouTube tutorials, I taught myself to code and began a lifelong fascination with technology.
Coding and campaigning to stay in the EU
When I turned 18, I went to the University of Glasgow to study Computing Science while working at a call centre in the city centre.
Truthfully, I found the pace of academia frustrating and left both of them to develop iPhone apps full-time.
My most successfull app allowed people to have multiple phone numbers on their phone at the same time. You can read an article about it here.
It was around this time that I started to get involved in politics.
In 2016, I was given a job as the organiser in the southside for the campaign to stay in the EU. We achieved one of the higest Remain votes in the UK.
Working for Labour
Campaigning to make the world a fairer place has been my life's work ever since.
I started working for the Labour Party as a local organiser and hardly looked back.
In 2021, I served as the director of Anas Sarwar's campaign to become leader of Scottish Labour. Anas was and still is a close friend of mine,
and someone I know will make a great First Minister of Scotland.
Selected as the Labour candidate
In February 2023, I was selected by party members as Labour's candidate for Glasgow South at the upcoming general election.
I spent every weekend for the next year and a half knocking on doors and delivering leaflets with my face on them (still a slightly odd experience).
Any political candidate will tell you the huge sacrifice involved in standing for public office, but I felt it was worth it whether I won or lost.
Every day I knew I was fighting for what I believed in - a government that works in the interest of working people.
Elected as your Member of Parliament
At 4.31am on Friday 5 July 2024, I was elected as the Member of Parliament for Glasgow South surrounded by my family and friends.
It was a huge moment for me personally, and the culmination of a lot of hard work not just on my part but on the part of a whole team of local volunteers.
As I said in my speech that night, being elected is the honour of my life and I will work day and night to repay the trust that so many people have put in me.
The rest of this story is left to write!